There were frustrating moments for Gerald Eastman and his Attorney
during his first trial, which led up to a mistrial, discussed in
previous posts on this site.

Some of these frustrations were brought about by King County Deputy
Prosecutor Scott Peterson and Boeing, who refused to release
information needed by Eastman and his attorney to fully prepare for
his defense against Boeing's attempts to prosecute him. Despite
repeated requests by Eastman's attorney, apparently Boeing would not
release the information, much of it on Eastman's computer, which
Boeing had confiscated during a Boeing initiated King County police
raid on Eastman's home well over a year ago. This is the same
information Boeing in spite of having it available to Boeing all that
time for forensic analysis, now says it wants Eastman to show them
what is there for about for up to 16 hours (2 sessions -2 days).

It seems that withholding evidence needed by a defendant for trial is
not a new concept in these circles. If you will recall one of the
last things Boeing and King County Deputy Prosecutor, Scott Peterson
did was to threaten Mr. Eastman that if he did not accept one of the
offered "deals" or settlement for Boeing's benefit, he would be
turned over to be tried in Federal Court by Federal Prosecutor, Carl Blackstone,
reputedly a close personal friend of Mark Boman of Perkins-Coie, a legal auditing
service. It seems Blackstone has been found to conduct himself questionably in
the past as well, curiously accused of the very same tactics, not
allowing a defendant the information released needed to prepare a
defense. See archived article below:
**********************************************************************

SANCTIONS DROPPED ON APPEAL
COURT REVERSES DISTRICT JUDGE'S ORDER AGAINST FEDERAL PROSECUTORS
By Steve Miletich P-I Reporter
Friday, November 12, 1993
Section: News, Page: D8
Two federal prosecutors in Seattle shouldn't have been sanctioned by
a federal judge in a case involving a Kirkland attorney convicted of
tax and fraud charges, a federal appeals court has ruled.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed
a decision by U.S. District Judge Thomas Zilly, who last year sharply
admonished federal prosecutors John Carver and Carl Blackstone after
ruling they had failed to provide in a timely fashion evidence
favorable to the defendant.
Zilly, in an action unprecedented in recent memory, ordered the
government to pay costs incurred by the defense to independently
locate the evidence.
The attorney, John M. Woodley, was convicted last year of defrauding
the Internal Revenue Service, Medicare and Medicaid of $560,000 in a
scheme that involved the $20 million fortune of a dead client.
Woodley was sentenced to 30 months in prison for tax and mail fraud,
and ordered to pay about $330,000 in fines, taxes and restitution.
The charges stemmed from Woodley's role as a trustee of the estate
left by Elizabeth A. Lynn of Medina in 1984. He was convicted of
stealing stock from Lynn's estate, donating it to her charitable
trust and taking an illegal $90,000 tax deduction.
He also was found guilty of illegally inflating rents at a Nevada
nursing home controlled by Lynn's trust, costing the government
$470,000.
In addition to reversing the sanctions order, the appeals court
upheld Woodley's conviction.
The court said there was no legal basis for the monetary sanctions
because federal prosecutors have immunity from economic penalties.
The U.S. Attorney's Office said the court noted that Zilly had found
no pervasive pattern by the prosecutors of withholding evidence. The
court also found that Woodley had not been prejudiced.
Zilly said their conduct fell ``below the standards" expected of
prosecutors in his court.
Woodley's attorney, Peter Byrnes, said the appeals court concluded
the prosecutors engaged in misconduct but that it was powerless to do
anything because of the immunity rule.
``The message by the 9th Circuit is that government lawyers can't be
sanctioned but that private attorneys can," Byrnes said, calling it a
``double standard."
He said no decision had been made on whether to ask the court to
reconsider the decisions on the sanctions and conviction.
Zilly's sanction order prompted an unusually pointed reply from then-
U.S. Attorney Mike McKay. He said last year that the decision was
``erroneous and inappropriate" and that Zilly was wrong on the facts
and his understanding of criminal discovery in the federal system.

Link to original:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/archives/1993/9311120076.asp

**********************************************************************

It only gets more and more curious, and troubling.... GFS

Deal with the Devil?
posted by The Last Inspector, Gerald Eastman
Monday, July 14, 2008,

As most of you probably know, late last week I entered into an agreement with the King County Prosecutor's office. If I cooperate per the agreement, the reduced charges listed in the agreement will be dismissed in January. Here are the links to the Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer articles on the agreement:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/l ... n11m0.html
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/ ... man11.html

I especially liked the Seattle Times article. The headline acknowledged my status as a whistleblower, and they went through the step (unknown to me until the article broke) of getting some 340 emails between Boeing and the King County Prosecutor's office that showed just how badly Boeing wanted to make an example of me by an all-out effort to ensure my conviction.

If the reporting is correct, King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg and others in the office came to their senses and resisted Boeing's extreme pressure to retry me so they would get another shot at shooting the messenger of their own fraudulent activities (me).

However, inexplicably, Senior Deputy Prosecutor Scott Peterson defied his superior's wants and pressed for a 2nd trial if I did not accept the continuance for dismissal which my attorney and I originally wrote and offered to the prosecutor's office, but was rewritten by Peterson and/or Boeing to the point where I did not want to accept it.

Perhaps later the reason Mr. Peterson defied his bosses and pursued a 2nd trial will become known in time. At this point I can think of only two possibilities (or some combination of both). Firstly, he was miffed that I exposed his own escape (with the help of friendly non-investigators that deferred to his position and power) from class B felony charges (a more serious felony than I was accused of) for his ramming a woman several times with his car because she was standing in a public parking spot he wanted, even over her dead body. And/or, the second reason, which would be that Boeing either pressured or "incentivized" him into defying his bosses and having him continue to move toward a 2nd trial of me.

So, this may be simply the effort to entrap me and do away with my jury trial rights that I noted in my previous blog, but I accepted it on the off chance it wasn't. Apparently compromised U.S. Attorney Carl Blackstone's threat of federal charges against me if I did not accept the badly rewritten agreement being nullified by a letter from him stating they would not try me if I took the agreement made the decision to sign it more compelling, although both Peterson and Blackstone quite well may have been bluffing about trying me again.

Blackstone is no stranger to withholding evidence required to be disclosed from defendants, just like Mr. Peterson. He withheld evidence from a defendant in a federal trial, and was admonished for it by a federal judge. Even though an appeals court reversed the monetary damages for his misconduct, the misconduct charge by the judge was not reversed. Federal prosecutors apparently have immunity if they engage in such misconduct as Mr. Blackstone was found to have engaged in. It defies common sense, but there is much in our federal and state justice systems that are anything but fair or balanced:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/archives/ ... 120076.asp

I will continue my whistleblowing undeterred, just as I have done so despite Boeing's and the prosecutor's transparent attempts to interfere with such and discredit me.

The agreement does have an exemption to allow my whistleblowing on the Boeing frauds I witnessed and uncovered to continue, whereas, before the exemption, the agreement could be construed to silence such whistleblowing.

Most predictably, both Marc Boman of Perkins Coie and U.S. Attorney Carl Blackstone now deny the way events actually happened--they deny Boman used his friendship with Blackstone to have him threaten me with federal charges. This proves, I believe, that Boman's and Blackstone's such actions were unethical if not illegal. Why would they deny facts gained from unimpeachable sources otherwise? Their denial does indicate one thing, however--that their lack of ethics as noted in my last blog is the real deal, as people in their line of work (with the possible exception of Boman's) are not supposed to prevaricate thusly.

This may indeed be a figurative "deal with the devil," but I thought it was in my best interest even when considering the lack of integrity of the parties on the other side behind it. Neither the prosecutor or Boeing management are the devil, however, I hope you get my point. I call it so after a cartoon I saw long ago, with a guy sitting in a chair in front of a corporation CEO's desk. Behind the desk was seated the devil himself. And the devil/CEO in the cartoon said to the man who had just met him for the first time and was sitting agog in front of him, "who did you think was running this company?"

Link to Mr. Eastman’s Website: http://www.thelastinspector.com

From OSC Watch.org

By A.H. Martin

July 9, 2008

What happens to Federal employees when the bureaucracy that employs them no longer sees them as a team player, but rather a weak link, not a member of their “team,” or worse, a whistleblower?

This article will give just a brief glimpse into the lives of two such public servants. Every American citizen should care about the treatment of Federal civil servants. Simply stated, if the rights of the public’s servants can be easily compromised, so can the rights of every and any citizen if they find themselves in the unfortunate position of being bullied by the Federal Bureaucracy, in other words, an Enemy of the State.

In the movie “Enemy of the State,” Will Smith found himself being hunted down by a very powerful Federal agency. The leaders of that agency believed he had something that would compromise, or expose the Government’s management integrity—or lack thereof. By no fault of his own, Smith, a private citizen, was targeted and the orders were given to terminate the problem—his life—because he threatened some very powerful ideologies. Gene Hackman was the Federal employee, and he too was targeted. There is a saying that goes something like truth is stranger than fiction.

Within the bricks and mortar of the Federal infrastructure—many Federal employees, and private citizens find themselves targeted as enemies of Federal executives, managers and political appointees. They find themselves there not because they intentionally sold secrets to China or gave military intelligence to the Soviet Union. Rather they find themselves being enemies of management employees because they tried to help another employee, who their boss didn’t like, or stood up for a member of the public…an act that political appointees simply didn’t appreciate, or exposed an exploitation of power.

Martin Salazar is one of those employees. Salazar testified in support of a Discrimination Case before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for a coworker, Shirley Smith. In return for his support of a mother of two, he could be facing over 12 months in Federal Prison because management was upset with Shirley and even more upset that Salazar would challenge their authority. The young mother, Shirley Smith served 24 months in Federal Prison for filing a false EEO statement, she charged the agency with discrimination through an EEO complaint and she didn’t win the complaint.

In order for the Federal management to retaliate effectively against Martin Salazar for aiding Shirley, collaboration with several parts of government is essential.

The case is in Aiken, South Carolina regarding Martin Salazar (if you Google his name), you will find that his crime was signing a retirement settlement agreement with the wrong birth date on the forms—forms which the agency, who initiated the charges, prepared. He was charged with making a false statement.
You may wonder why their lawyers didn’t do a better job of defending them. You may also refuse to believe that our justice system could be so unjust. Surely there is more to this story. Well there is and it goes something like this.

Remember the firings of the U.S. Attorneys? Well it takes a U.S. Attorney to decide if they will prosecute a case. Some U.S. Attorneys wouldn’t prosecute cases on clearly Administrative matters, while others overzealous U.S. Attorneys will. The US Attorney in Aiken, South Carolina is one of those that would and did. South Carolina has a history of taking actions to put the fear of God in people of color and/or minorities; reminding these people of “their place.”

Both Martin and Shirley are minorities. Martin is a Mexican American, Shirley is African American. If those in power want to send a message to Federal employees not to testify for other employees, or if the people in power want to silence whistleblowers both within and outside of government, sending people to prison for filing discrimination lawsuits is one sure way to accomplish this.

Federal managers and executives only need the “right” U.S. Attorney—one that is a “team player”—to be willing to use their power to retaliate against the employee. The Federal Judicial system is a powerful tool. Lawyers are intimidated every day to comply with the wishes of powerful people at the expense of their client. This is the reality of the legal and judicial system we have in the United States.

Is it illegal? Is it unethical? Is it immoral? Yes to all three questions. The more complicated question is “what can we do about it”? The answer—not much—if you have limited financial resources or political influence.

After his support of Ms. Smith, Mr. Salazar became a true enemy of the Department of Energy (DOE) management officials, and the division they worked for.

These officials do what most Federal managers do when they don’t like an employee who exposes errors/issues—they targeted him, harassed him, alienated him, and bullied him, hoping he would give up and leave. He filed discrimination charges against the DOE, which was the only way he could try to protect himself, his job to provide for his family.

The DOE proposed a unilateral settlement with Salazar. He accepted. The DOE prepared the settlement agreement and validated his retirement documents. Both were base upon the DOE’s calculations and set dates for each function; the erroneous separation date and retirement date. Once enacted by the government 16 months later, they charged him with making a false statement. He was arrested, charged and found guilty in Federal District court of making a false statement as he was not part of the “team.” He is now facing 12 Months in Federal Prison for this “crime” he did not commit.

There are laws against retaliation for filing discrimination complaints and testifying. There are also laws against selective prosecution. But who is going to enforce these laws—the Justice Department? The Justice Department was unable, or unwilling to handle the overzealous prosecution of six children in Jena Louisiana. Laws are only as good as the desire and agenda of the empowered individuals responsible for enforcing them.

If Federal executives and managers choose to validate bad dates on retirement papers, that they themselves prepared, and also prosecute unsuccessful discrimination lawsuits, which result in federal crimes of false statement, and then send Federal employees to prison, then the general public, and not just the Federal employee, is at the mercy of Federal Agency officials and U.S. Attorneys, who choose to use the judicial system as a tool to retaliate, bully and destroy the lives of those they do not like, who are not considered “team players.”

Interestingly enough Martin Salazar obtained “sworn Declarations/Affidavits” from two of the three main government witnesses. These same government witnesses made declaration unlike those at the trial, and only now state the truth, “after the fact”, because they are protected from criminal perjury by the very US Attorney that prosecuted this case… can we say “conflict of interest”? In fact, the statements from these government witnesses are more egregious acts than the charges faced by Salazar.

Although the U.S Attorney and the Court were made aware of the potential perjury, neither the U.S. Attorney, or the Court was concerned with these violations; they obtained the ill results of a conviction despite the fact it came from absolute and known lies.

In other words the U.S. Attorney in Aiken, South Carolina is not protecting the public from a criminal, or seeking to uncover the truth, but merely seeking a conviction. Now that they have a conviction, the truth and justice are not of concern. The U.S. attorney is not interested in pursuing witnesses who helped railroad an innocent man. They get away with the real crime—an innocent man goes to prison—where is the justice?

The nightmare of Shirley Smith and Martin Salazar’s life is not a movie and unfortunately not unique.
They, like countless other Private Citizens and Federal Employees, have suffered and have not only lost a job but have lost the God given freedoms of American life for themselves and their families, with the impact of the future consequences from Federal convictions, which is immeasurable.

Federal employment is competitive but it can also be life threatening in untold ways. More and more people are entering public service because jobs in the private sector are not readily available. People want security. At the same time the prison industrial complex is flourishing. Taxpayers are funding the destruction of thousands of lives like Martin’s and Shirley’s on frivolous issues and selective prosecutions. Good people who did the right thing are going to Federal Prison because high ranking Federal employees have friends in positions of power, and exploit these advantages for personal agendas.

The Federal Government is the nation’s largest employer. Over 1.8 million people are employed by our government. The Federal government’s reach touches the lives of absolutely every American Citizen. To be a Federal civil, or public servant brings to mind images of postal workers, forest rangers, FBI Agents, air traffic controllers and of course tax collectors, just to name a few. As an employer, the Federal government has a solid reputation of offering its’ employees job security, and decent salary and good benefits. What the public often doesn’t realize is the that there is a dark side to that good government job.

The dark side reflects an employer that has unlimited money, unbridled power, and undeserved respect within the minds of the American public, media, and judicial system. When an employee finds themselves on the other side of an issue that contradicts management—whether the issue be public safety, national security, or public health, the employee can easily become, to borrow a movie title, an “Enemy of the State.”

Not only is the employee’s livelihood at stake, but also at risk are their lives and the lives of their families; becoming pawns in the abuse of power in “protecting Federal government”; Moreover, the government is spending untold Millions of taxpayer’s dollars to carry out theses atrocities, and will continue to do so at our expense, in covering up Federal executives and managers errors and personal agendas.

Without exposure of the conduct of the Federal bureaucracy unjust actions against its Citizens and against its employees, and a change in the culture of institutional and bureaucratic bullying, we are all vulnerable to becoming Enemies of the State.

What can you do to help?

PLEASE SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION

>>> CLICK HERE <<<

See Original Article Here:

http://www.oscwatch.org/blog/2008/07/09/when-public-servants-become-enemies-of-the-state/

Hal Weitzman, Financial Times.Com, states in article “Boeing levels off after losing altitude” published July 14, 2008, that earlier this spring Boeing seemed to be looking becalmed in the doldrums. He cites reasons, such as repeated delays of 787 and losing contract awards to other companies. He then discusses the GAO report and the continuation of the Tanker Deal 2 competition. He finishes by musing on things that could go wrong for Boeing with the installation of a new administration next fall, and the possibility of more customers deferring orders. This in spite of the news reports of healthy sales at the Air Show in England yesterday.

Link to Original: http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto071420080612469850&referrer_id=yahoofinance

BOEING: WE SCREWED UP, GIVE US $500 MIL
DEFENSETECH.ORG, CHRISTIAN LOWE - EDITOR

"When a child who is on trial for murdering his parents pleads for leniency on grounds that he is an orphan, we call that chutzpah," says Space News' Washington Aerospace Briefing. "When a U.S. defense contractor botches a program demands a huge termination fee when the contract is cancelled, we call that... standard operating procedure."
So no, we weren't completely shocked to hear that Boeing is seeking about $500 million from the National Reconnaissance Office in termination fees associated with the Future Imagery Architecture spy satellite program. The NRO cancelled the optical portion of Boeing's multi-billion dollar FIA contract last year after becoming fed up with the company's technical struggles and that lead to innumerable delays and soaring costs.

FIA was supposed to be “a constellation of satellites that would gather clearer and more-frequent images -- even at night and when there is a cloud cover -- of enemy military activity than current satellites can,” the Los Angeles Times notes. Originally scheduled to launch in 2005, at one point, FIA looked like it might become the “most expensive program in the history of the intelligence community,” according to Globalsecurity.org.

When Boeing won the FIA contract, back in 1999, it was something of a coup. As the Times observes, “Much of Boeing's space expertise was in making rockets to launch satellites and developing commercial telecommunication satellites. It had little experience manufacturing satellites with optical lenses that can take close-up pictures from space of objects on the ground.” That was Lockheed Martin’s area of expertise. “Boeing bid very aggressively even though it didn't understand the technology as well as Lockheed," the ubiquitous Loren Thompson told the LAT.

So it’s no surprise that Boeing started burning through cash and dropping deadlinesa, once FIA got underway. “As early as 2002, the government had to reprogramming of about $625 million [and possibly as much as $900 million] from other intelligence programs… to get the program back on schedule,” Globalsecurity.org says. “By the end of 2004 the House Intelligence Committee remained concerned about the viability and effectiveness of a future overhead architecture, given the apparent lack of a comprehensive architectural plan for the overhead system of systems, specifically in the area of imagery.”
By 2005 – after $10 billion on FIA, including about $4 or $5 billion in cost overruns – the government finally had enough, taking the project away from Boeing, and giving it to Lockheed.
Boeing's request for a half a B to make up for the lost work is big. But it's not totally unprecedented, Washington Aerospace Briefing says. The company is still arguing with the Pentagon over $2.3 billion for the A-12 stealth carrier aircraft program, cancelled in 1991.
(Big ups: AT, JS)
UPDATE 2:28 PM: AT points out that there were some interesting names associated with Boeing's controversial FIA win. In Boeing's '99 press release, we read:
Ed Nowinski, Boeing FIA Program Manager, stated, 'This was a very hard-fought competition and the win is the result of the total commitment of our team.'

Who is Ed Nowinski? Check out this press release, from 1996:
MELBOURNE, Florida, August 5, 1996—Harris Corporation has named Ed Nowinski as vice president of Strategic Planning and Business Development for the company's Electronic Systems Sector.
Mr. Nowinski most recently was the director of imagery intelligence for the U.S. government's National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and director of development and engineering for the Central Intelligence Agency.

Mr. Nowinski joined the CIA in 1967 and rose rapidly to positions of increasing responsibility during his career with the CIA and NRO, including director of the Data Communications Group, deputy director of development and engineering, and director of systems engineering. During his government career, he was instrumental in establishing several of the country's premier intelligence collection systems.

Link to Original: http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002142.html